I gotta second that. “Sinners in the Hands of an Erich Zann” totally made me do what the kids call a “lol.”

Bryn LaFollette on

June 29, 2010 at 1:58 PM

First time commenting here and want to express how my I enjoy what you guys are doin’ with the Podcast! I’m sort of a newcomer, but I’ve been diligently catching up from the beginning over the last few weeks.

So, that said, here’s my episode-specific comment: I was curious about the dates of (re)writing versus publishing of the story you mention in the podcast. It sounded like you said that Talman and Lovecraft completed the story between June and October of 1929, but then it sounded like it was published in Weird Tales in August of 1927. Now, there’s some scary manipulation of time-space… or what’s up with that?

Great you guys are back, and with a story I never knew even existed. Just thinking perhaps the old bugger should have hobbled the big fella’s corpse like the cheapskate undertaker in ‘The Crypt’. It might not stop Mr Vanderhoof’s Zombie, but at least reduce its stride. Also, gave ‘Cool Air’ episode a re-listen, and reminded of the snuggie. We get them here in Australia too, and it’s winter here now so the US advertisments are on the TV here; including comical mother cheering child at sporting event. Would look more at home on a bunch of cultists dancing around idol-topped stone monoliths in the heart of the Maine woods, though. Keep up the great work guys, can’t wait for ‘Pickman’s Model’, and I’m sure many references to ‘American Warewolf in London’. PS. Would love it if the titular two black bottles were somehow used in a Coca-Cola advertisment.

I agree: it seems that all of these terrors are nameless. What happens if we start naming them? We could have terror Fred, terror Edna, and so on. Now, people can be afraid of the Fred terror instead of having to keep re-using the nameless one…

I can just see HPL as a travel writer…NOT! “Come to Paris, with theEiffel Tower, theLouvre, and the nameless terror (TM) in the cellar that will drive you insane!

Keith McCaffety on

July 4, 2010 at 4:18 PM

I like the way this story ends. The image of a dead man walking the world with a bottle under his arm, trying to remember what he’s looking for… I just like it.

And the other dead guy re-burying him EVERY night? LOL.

The use of the word “rascal” got my attention, too. I heard it used once before in a way that surprised me. It was Shamus Culhane, an old-school animator who worked on Disney’s Snow White and Pinocchio. He said, “Walt wasn’t the kind old dad people remember, he was a RASCAL!” Then he told how Disney kept blacks and Jews off the studio grounds and made it clear that women were good for ink-and-paint only (sweatshop work) and could NOT be animators. (proof here: http://www.mouseplanet.com/8166/The_Mystery_of_the_Female_Disney_Animator)

‘Rascal” is not a word that comes to mind for that kind of behavior, at least not for my generation. I’m thinking maybe it meant more at the time. Perhaps Hal Roach’s “Little Rascals” series was really edgy back then. Like today we’d call it “Little Bastards” or “Little Mo-Fos.”

Last time I was in Witby I went to this cheesy gypsy tourist palm reader, she was getting everything so wrong, like if she’d read the story of my life and tried to figure out the exact opposite, I felt so sorry for her I started to pretend she was getting everything right, I think I felt I had to because initially I was impressed by signed picture of her with Cher, but I realized it was only a Cher transvestite impersonator, Hard times in Witby.